?We are all mitakuye oyasin?
Jace DeCory begins each day by acknowledging her elders. ?They are our first teachers?parents and grandparents, all those elders who have been an influence in our lives. You need to acknowledge them and embrace them,? said the Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at Black Hills State University.
A Lakota who is registered with the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, DeCory was at Sanford Lab Friday talking about ?Building Cultural Bridges.? The Black Hills, or He Sapa as they are traditionally called, are sacred to the Lakota. ?They are the heart of everything for the Lakota people. The heart of all that is,? she said.
She talked about how we are all related, even if we are not family. ?You may not be from the Buffalo People, but you are my relatives.? And as relatives, DeCory believes we have a responsibility to be caretakers of the Black Hills. ?We have to make sure the earth is protected and not overwhelmed?, she said. ?Scientists get that. People who work with the earth get that. We don?t want to desecrate the environment because we want to live. And we want the next seven generations of humankind to live without suffering.?
Even as she recognized the strong feelings all cultures who live here have for the Black Hills, DeCory didn?t shy away from controversy. In 1868, the Fort Laramie Treaty ceded 60 million acres of land, including all of the Black Hills, to the Lakota. But when gold was discovered, the government seized the land. Prospectors and settlers streamed into the area and in 1876, the Homestake Mine was born. Over 126 years, more than 41 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver were pulled from the ground.
Tribes fought the U.S. Government for decades over the land. In 1980, the Supreme Court finally agreed with the Lakota, saying the land had been taken wrongfully and the tribes were awarded $102 million in compensation. The money has never been collected and today the trust is valued at $1.3 billion.
When the idea of turning the closed mine into an underground laboratory surfaced, DeCory said there were many who believed it would be further desecration of the land. ?There are as many opinions as there are people,? she said. ?I believe that since it is already dug out, we should make something positive out of it.?
DeCory ended her presentation with a smudging, a practice that uses burning sage or sweet grass to release negative energy and thoughts. As she moved through the room, she reminded participants again that we are all ?mitakuye oyasin??relatives. ?That means more than just human relatives. We are all related to that which is on Earth?rocks, bugs, trees. Everything in the universe.?